::headdesk::

So, um, I haven't updated since October? My bad. I have never been good at journaling in any form. So to bring people up to speed with my life since October, I'll give a bit of a summary, and then probably spend the next couple of days describing my Winter Vacation.
In recent months, I have:

• Visited some castles in the Loire river valley. We saw Chambourd, and visited Tours (the city. heee. We went on a tour of Tours), a former abbey, a vineyard, and Amboise, which is where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years. da Vinci's manor was pretty cool to visit, but definitely not worth the nine euros we payed to get in. Also, French strangers now have pictures of me acting like a complete idiot on a mock-up of da Vinci's helicopter design. Overall, trip was fun, but we seriously considered smacking the Mediterranean students who wouldn't freaking shut up on the five hour bus ride.
• Had a very makeshift Thanksgiving. At the last moment, we decided to make chicken, mashed potatoes, teriyaki green beans, and what I could have sworn were cranberries, but were actually sour cherries. And some sparkling wine. Which totally exploded all over the table. We lost about half the bottle, but it was definitely a humorous moment. Once I got over the fact I had wine all over myself. I also learned that drinking a third of a bottle of wine all on my own is really, really dumb. Won't repeat that experience again.
• Spent ridiculous amounts of time in class. I mean, seriously--15 hours of straight, unmitigated French a week, plus two 2-hour classes once a week, also taught in French. I've started mixing English and French together, especially in regards to verbs. Though I am getting better at expressing myself in French. At least, regular day-to-day French. It's still really hard to discuss abstract topics, or things I don't even know about in English.
  
• Learned several creative ways to prepare noodles in the microwave. Like, mix regular spaghetti sauce and this type of spreadable cheese they sell here in a bowl with noodles, and it's like gourmet spaghetti. So incredibly tasty.
• Done lots and lots of laundry by hand. It's expensive to use the washing machine here, about four euros to wash and dry one load. And since we have a sheet exchange every 15 days for our bedding, I don't have anything huge that needs to be washed

In other news, it snowed today! Just a dusting, but the red tile roofs look really charming with the slight layer of snow. As much as I wish I weren't back in class just yet, it is really nice to see everyone again. The fact I've made some really good friends is the ONLY reason I didn't go home after this semester. I haven't had a bad time, but I really thing one semester would have been sufficient. I'm more a homebody than I realised.

To look forward towards in the next post: Christmas vacation! and *shock!* *le gasp!* PICTURES. I have lots. Just need to organise them and put them up on photobucket or somesuch.

I'm really bad at this blogging thing

So sorry for the freakishly long delay. I got the new power-cord for my laptop absolute ages ago, and completely forgot to update. So, in the past few weeks, I have:

• eaten "pain frites". The French, in all their culinary ingenuity, decided that french fries make wonderful garnish on sandwiches. And (at least on college campuses) this has been taken even further, and you can buy a small baguette stuffed with fries. I kid you not. I believe it ranks up there with twinkies on the scale of how likely the food is to give you a heart attack
• become obsessed with two French musicals, "Notre Dame de Paris", and "Le Petit Prince", both based on novels. Le Petit Prince is one of my favourite stories of all times. I cry like a baby every time I read it. Notre Dame de Paris is better known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Ohmigosh, that show has the most intricate staging and choreography. It's so cool to watch.
• studied the subjunctive tense. Again. There's a wide range of ability in our class, and three or four people hadn't ever studied it before. As it's rather important, we're being drilled on it once more.
• gone to Lyon again. I had to go for a medical exam to get my "carte de sejour" (think the French version of a green card). I got my lungs x-rayed, got weighed and measured, and they checked my vision and blood pressure. I'm all nice and normal! I also visited a bunch of churches while I was there, and we discovered a Starbucks! YAY!
• eaten at "Quick", which is a French fast food restaurant. They make amazing burgers! Definitely a rival of McDonalds ("Macdo" in French) on that front. McDonalds still makes the best fries anywhere. Still trying to find Tex-Mex. I am totally attacking a qdoba burrito as soon as I'm back in the States
  

Other than that, my life is still pretty routine. I started a "Culture and Civilization" class, and an Art History class, and both of those are pretty fun. I've got the same teacher for each class, and she's absolutely insane! She gets so enthusiastic about everything. One of the girls in my Art History class and I decided she's like Professor Trewlany from the Harry Potter books. So that's about the whole of it. For serious, if anyone ever has questions, or ideas about what I should blog about, let me know! I feel all boring, since I almost never go anywhere.

My laptop is busted, so I won't be posting until I can get a replacement power-cord. Hopefully I'll have exciting things to post then!

Surviving

So I found out that despite the warning on the packaging, you can indeed nuke the samosas, and they taste just fine. It was so nice to eat something that wasn't a sandwich for dinner. I'll definitely buy them again. Once I have some oil or butter, I can try frying them, since the microwave makes them more chewy that crunchy.

Also, in France, people put butter on sandwiches, the way we'd put mayo or mustard on sandwiches. It was a big surprise, biting into my sandwich at lunch today and getting a mouth-full of butter. Though apparently this isn't completely uncommon in the US. My friend Erick says that he uses butter on sandwiches when he hasn't got any other condiments.

In other, non-food oriented subjects, class is going well. I feel kind of stupid sometimes, because it seems the more we go over passe compose vs. imparfait, the worse I get. I take heart in knowing that I'm not the only one who has problems with this. And we went over this already! We spent two of the three weeks in the crash course on the same topic. It gets really boring sometimes, but in a class so small, it's hard to let your mind wander without getting caught. It was really gray and dreary today, and the forecast calls for more rain tomorrow and Saturday. I suspect that the weather is going to get steadily chillier as the month goes on. The sun came out for a little bit in the afternoon, though. Not that I saw much of it. I took a glorious nap. I sleep a lot here. Trying to use French all the time is exhausting. I think I'll make an early night of it. I fell asleep listening to my iPod last night, and woke up in the middle of the night wondering what was on my head---my headphones, of course. As is rapidly becoming my custom, I shall end the post with yet another photograph, this time of a sign I saw in Puy-en-Velay, for a "WC canin". A WC is a "water closet", or toilet, and canin obviously refers to "canine" or "dog", so I'm assuming it's some sort of toilet for dogs? I have no idea. It was truly bizarre.

Sleeeepy

I am so freakin' tired! I had my first day of "regular" courses today. It's still mostly Americans in my class, but we also have a girl from China, a guy from Sudan (who plays Basketball professionally in Europe and Africa), and a girl from Japan. My teacher is the same as the one I had for the three week course, Mme Marie Berger. I feel like these classes won't drag so much because the class is so much smaller. I've been so spoiled at Bellarmine, having only four or five people in a language class. Granted, I take French and Chinese, not the most popular language choices on campus.

After class, I ate in the cafe instead of the Resto-U. I think the prices are just as good, and the food is better at the cafe. I may start eating there more often. I got a steak-frites and a coke, and it was absolutely delicious. Then I went to the bank, where I finally picked up my bank card. I also went to the Centre-Deux to go grocery shopping and to buy a uniform for Aikido. Of course, I accidentally grabbed the wrong size (I HATE CENTIMETERS!), so I'll have to see if they'll let me exchange it.

Tonight, instead of going to Taekwondo like I normally do, I went to rock-climbing with some of the friends I've made here. It was a good experience, and I'm glad I went, but I think I'm gonna stick with Taekwondo. I am not at all fond of heights. I tend to panic if I get more than five feet off the ground. The only nice thing about rock-climbing is that it lets out earlier than taekwondo, so dinner doesn't have to be as late. Speaking of dinner, I have no idea what I'm going to eat. I bought some samosas at Auchan, but I don't have any oil to fry them in, and the packaging suggests NOT making them in the microwave. I'll probably just fix a sandwich, and drink some more of the wonderful Auchan-brand version of Orangina. So I'll do that, and maybe start on the essay that's due thursday. Or I'll watch a movie. Who knows. I shall leave you with a picture of the view outside my dorm's kitchen:

Pictures!

Okay, so here's just a few pictures of my stay so far in France. Sorry that they're so crowded into here. The top left photo is at the Roman ampitheatre in Lyon, as is the bottom right photo. The top right photo is St Charles Cathedral, where I've been going to church in St Etienne. And the bottom left photo is part of St Jean in Lyon, which was gorgeous. I wish I could have gone in there while I was there. Enjoy the pictures!

Augh! Again I'm sorry with the infrequent updates! I've just been so busy lately that all I ever seem to do is go to class and sleep. With heavy emphasis on the sleep.

To give you an idea of what a typical day is for me, I get up at eight and have some breakfast, and do all the usual things that need doing when one starts the day. Then I walk about 10-15 minutes to la Site Dennis Papin, where I have my CILEC courses for French. Classes last from 9-12, and we work on grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, and writing skills. Because this is an intensive three week course, everything is review right now. We get one break in the middle of the morning, and I usually use that time to grab a snack or to hang out with some of the other international students. Once class is out, I either eat at the Resto-U, or go back to my dorm to fix something. On Wednesdays, we have "ateliers", or workshops. I took a theatre-workshop. The scene my partner and I worked on was basically the French equivalent of "Who's On First?", using mix-ups with the words "Caen" the city, and "quand", which means "when"; "Car" meaning "bus" and "quart" meaning "quarter past the hour"; and "Sète", another city, and "sept", or "seven". All of these words, of course, sound nigh-on identical

After class and lunch, I either take a nap, or head off to the mall to shop at Auchan, the French equivalent of Walmart/Krogers. I can buy a week's worth of groceries for under 20 euro! Plus they sell this great off-brand version of Orangina, so I can get a liter and a half for less than a euro. After that, I do homework and make my own dinner. Usually, I just make sandwiches, because I'm too lazy to cook anything. I spend a lot of time on the internet, hoping to catch friends back home to chat with. I take a shower in my waaaay-too-small bathroom, and usually crash by midnight.

I do work out four nights a week, though. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to Aikido, which is loads of fun. I really like learning how to fall. And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays is Taekwondo. I like that it's on the same days as I'd be practicing back home. It makes it a touch more familiar.

Everyone in France that I've met so far has been really friendly. People seem very willing to go out of their way to help foreigners, and are kind enough to correct me when I make mistakes. I like it when people mistake me for a native speaker. It makes me feel like I don't stand out too much, that I'm not too obviously American. And apparently I don't sound American when I speak. They can tell I'm not from St Etienne, and once I goof up, they know I'm foreign, but they don't automatically assume I'm American. They have to ask where I'm from first.

A random, cool thing I've learned about spoken French. The "ne" in "ne....pas" is optional. Instead of "Je ne suis sorti pas hier soir", you'd say "Je suis sorti pas hier soir" Well, at least I think it's cool. Anyway, that's about all for now. Again, once I figure out how it works, I'll post some pictures. I've taken lots. I'm just horribly lazy, as y'all well know. A bientot!